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16— 47372-y aPO 






THE PROCEEDINGS 



Southern Historical Convention, 

Which Assembled at the Montgomery White Sulphur 
Springs, Va., on the 1-1th of August, 1873; 

AND OF THE 

SOUTHERN HISTOEICAL SOCIETY, 



AS REORGANISED, 

WITH THE 

Address by Gen, Jubal A. Early, 

Delivered before the Convention on the First day of its Session. 




BALTIMORE; 

TUENBULL BEOTIIERS, 

Publishers to The Southern Historical Society, 
8 N. Charles Street. 



.? 



U / 



nyciisrxjTES 



Southern Historical Convention. 



MOSTGOMEKY WllITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, 

August Uth, 1873. 

At llj o'clock A. M. the Convention was called to order 
by Gen. Early, who explained the absence of Dr. Palmer; 
and upon his motion, Gen. Beauregard was called to the 
Chair pro tempore, and Rev. J. Wni. Jones, of Richmond, 
was made Secretary. 

On motion of Admiral Semmes, a Committee on Creden- 
tials was appointed, as follows : — 

Admiral Semmes, Gen. Early, and Gen. Wilcox. 

And a Committee on Organisation was also appointed, 
consisting of — 

Col. Withers, Col. McKinney, Gen. Butler, Admiral 
Semmes, and Gen. Martin. 

The following communication from the Executive Com- 
mittee of the Southern Historical Society was then read by 
the Secretary : — 

To the President and Members of the Historical Convention met at the 
Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, Va., on the \Uh August, 1873. 

Gentlemen :— As the Convention of which you are members is held at 

the instance of the Southern Historical Society, it is proper that, through 

its Executive Committee, some statement should be laid before you of the 

objects contemplated in this call, and which may form the starting point 

your deliberations. 

The Southern Historical Society was organised in the city of New Or- 
leans, on the 1st of May, 1869. The paper which is herewith enclosed, 
sets forth in detail the work it proposed to accomplish and the methods 
• which it devised. By the election of one Vice-President in each of the 
Southern States, it was hoped that State Societies would speedily be 



4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 

organised as arliculated members of the Parent Society : and that branch- 
ing out from these, local and affiliated Societies would be formed, covering 
like a net the entire Southern country, and affording a ready agency for 
collecting the materials of our history. 

We are sorry to add that in these expectations we have been disap- 
pointed. "The sore necessity of struggling for a difficult subsistence has 
l)ressed upon our people everywhere alike, and has baffled all attempts 
to ti.x the public mind upon tiie objects we proposed. Few Societies have 
been organised, either State or local : and though a vigorous correspon- 
dence has been kept up for tliis end, we have succeeded as yet in collect- 
ing but little original matter for the future Historian. This collection of 
tlie raw material of History was the first object had in view: which, as 
rapidly as gathered, should be collated and digested, and w'hich should 
form tlie basis of a thorough, truthful, and, as far as possible, a documen- 
t>iy History of our people and of our times. Having so far failed in 
acliieving these important ends, it is difficult to determine what measures 
next to pursue. The work itself is too noble, too patriotic, too necessary 
to be abandoned : and the thought is intolerable of leaving the vindica- 
tion of our principles and of our brave and martyred Dead to the honesty 
of some chance antiquarian of the future ; who may mourn over the loss 
of records wliich it should be our business to preserve. In this extremity 
the Southern Historical Society has issued the call for this Convention; 
with the double hope of awakening the zeal and enthusiasm of our people, 
and of developing some more efficient method of securing the objects at 
which it has vainly toiled. 

There are, then, two points to be distinctly brought before the attention 
of your body. The Jirst is, whether it would not be wise to remove the 
domicile of the Parent Society from New^ Orleans to some other city, from 
wiiich a stronger influence may radiate, and sooner overtake our wide 
territory. New Orleans is situated at the edge of our common country, 
is almost entirely commercial in its pursuits, with a population less stable 
than elsewhere, with fewer men of cultivated leisure — and above all, in 
a State so heavily borne down l)y its political troubles, that whatever of 
public spirit exists, is absorbed witii the difficulties of a peculiarly op- 
pressed condition. It is almost impossible, tiicrefore, to rally in tliat city 
a working force sufficient for such an enterprise as this. In some other 
locality, the Society might have more leverage power, and toucli more 
generally the springs of influence, as well as be nearer to the sources of 
information which it is requisite to collect. This matter is submitted to 
the consideration of the Convention, with the assurance that they may 
decide in the premises, relieved of all delicacy — and that the same cor- 
diality and earnestness will be exhibited in the subordinate sphere by 
those who have hitherto sought to act in the higher. 

In the second place, the experience of the past four years has demon- 
strated tliat no reliance can be placed upon a voluntary and diffused 
agency, even for the collection of the materials which lie in such abun- 
dance around us. The work is one of too much detail, and tlie men who 
are competent to the task are too much engrossed with their i)rivate busi- 
ness to warrant the expectation of its being accomplished b}^ this means. 
It must be made tlie special duty and sole occupation of some one party to 
go about from State to State, and gather up tliis scattered material wherever 
he can find it. He must receive an adequate support during the period, 
however long he may be occupied with this service. It is desired that 
tliis Convention shall maturely consider this proposition. If it shall com- 
mend itself to their judgment, it will become necessary to institute mea- 
sures for effecting a more perfect and more general organisation than 
exists at present — from which, by an easy and diffused assessment, the 
revenue may be raised to meet the expenses of such an agency. 

It is not perhaps necessary tliat this work shall be done by the person 
who shall hereafter compile and write the history. It is the colleclioa of 



SOUTHEKN HISTOMCAL CONVENTION. 

the materials for sucli a history that must be the first object of our atten- 
tion ; and one may be found with admirable qualities for this task, who 
may not be the best fitted for the other. So far as the principles are con- 
cerned which we have struggled to maintain, these are accessible enough, 
and there are many gentlemen who are competent to elucidate them. 
But the various steps taken in the different States, which led up to Seces- 
sion — the whole history of the war, militar^y, congressional, and diploma- 
tic — and the reconstruction measures which have followed its close, 
forming i)erhaps the most curious and instructive record to be found in 
the annals of any people, — these can only be gathered with great industry 
and patience by some party who possesses the rare faculty of ferreting out 
what is hidden — 

/ " To learn upon a hint, to find upon a clue." 

The response wliich has been made to our appeals, though for reasons 
already suggested, unproductive of any valuable results — is yet suflBcient 
to convince us that when some distinct progress shall be exhibited in the 
prosecution of this work, or a feasible method for accomplishing it has 
been devised, our people will readily contribute the means necessary. 

These matters, therefore, are submitted to the wisdom of the Conven- 
tion, with the sincere hope that its deliberations will not terminate with- 
out giving a large impulse to a movement in wliich the safety of our com- 
mon country and the honor of our own people seem to us so largely in- 
volved. 

B. M. PALMER, 
HARRY T. HAYS, 
G. T. BEAUREGARD. 

After a short recess, the Committee on Credentials reported 
the following delegates as present : — 

Louisiana Gen. G. T. Beauregard, Capt. Chas. E. Fenner, Gen. C. 

M. AVilcox, Capt. Geo. H. Frost, Gen. P. O. Hebert, \Y . 

A. Bell, Lt. Chas. A. Conrad, H. Y. T. Beauregard. 
Georgia Judge D. A. Vaison, Major Jno. A. A. West, Gen. Ro. 

H. Anderson. 
North Carolina. Hon. R. H. Smitli. 
Alabama Admiral Raphael Semmes, Col. G. A. Henry, Jr., Col. T. 

B. Roy, Capt. E. Thornton Tayloe. 

Texas Col. A. W. Spaight, Maj. F. Chas. Hume, Major D. F. 

Holland. 
South Carolina. Gen. M. C. Butler, Maj. C. H. Suber. 

Kentucky Col. AYm. Preston Johnston. 

Maryland H. C. Turnbull, Jr. 

Mississippi Gen. W. T. Martin, Major D. W. Floweree, Capt. J. E. 

Leigh. 

Missouri Col. W. H. H. Russell. 

Tennessee Col. Jno. A. McKinuey, Gen. W. Y. C. Humes. Gen. A. 

W. Campbell, Rev. J. H. Bryson, W. A. Collier, Sam. 

Mannsfield, Col. Polk Johnson. 
Virginia Gen. Henry Heth, Gen. D. H Maury, Gov. Jno. Letcher, 

Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, Gen. Eppa Huuton, Gen. Thos. T. 

Munford. Col. R. E. Withers, Gen. Jas. H. Lane, Gen. 

Gabriel C. AVharton. Gen. R. D. Lille}% Rev. Dr. J L. 

M. Curry, Rev. J. Wm. Jones, Col. C. S. Venable, Col. 

Jno. A. Sloan, Gen. AV. R. Terry, Gfci. Wm. Terry, 

Col. Wm. Preston Johnston, Col. Robert T. Preston, 

F. R. Farrar, Gen. B. H. Robertson, Capt. J. W. C. 

Davis, and Gen. J. A. Early. 



b PROCEEDINGS OF THE 

The Committee on Permanent Organisation reconimendcd 
the following officers, who ■svere unanimously elected : — 

President— Gov. Jolm Letcher, of Virginia. 

1st Vice-President— Admiral Senimes, of Alabama. 

2(^ Vice-President — Geu. G. T. Beauregard, of Louisiana. 

'M Vice-President— Gen. W. Y. C. Humes, of Teuuessee. 

Secretary — Rev. J. Wm. Jones, of Virginia. 

Ass't Secretary— Major Jno. A. A. West, of Georgia. 

The President appointed Col. Withers, Gen. Early, and 
Admiral Semmes to escort Gov. Letcher to the Chair. 

On taking the Chair, Gov. Letcher returned thanks for the 
honor conferred upon him, and spoke earnestly of the impor- 
tant objects to be subserved by the Convention. 

Gen. Early then read a letter from Wm. Hand Browne, 
Editor of The Southern Magazine, which was referred to the 
Committee on Business; as were also a letter from S. Teackle 
Walli^, and certain business proposals from the publishers of 
The Southern Magazine. 

On motion of Admiral Semmes, the Chair appointed the 
following Committee on Business: — 

1. Admiral Semmes. 2. Gen. Wilcox. 

3. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. 4. Gen. Butler. 

5. Gen. MaurJ^ 6. Gen. Martin. 

7. Gen. Hebert. 8. Gen. Early. 

9. Col. Jno. McKinney. 10. Col. Vcnablc. 

IL Col. Wm. Preston Johnston. 

On motion of Gen. R. D. Lilley, the following resolution was 
referred to the Committee on Business : 

That a Committee of three or more be appointed from each 
State, to receive historical sketches and such facts as will be of 
service in preparing a correct history cf the Confederate army 
— the Vice-President of each State to be chairmonBTof the Com- 
mittee for his State. 

On motion of Col. Wm. Preston Johnston, Gen. Early was 
requested to deliver his address at 4 p. m. to-day. 



SOUTHEEN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 7 

Gen. Heth explained the unavoidable absence of Gens. 
Hood and Pickett, and the Convention then adjourned till 
4 P. M. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 

The Convention met at 4 o'clock, pursuant to adjournment. 
Gov. Letcher in the chair. 

Gen. Early, who had been requested by a resolution of the 
Southern Historical Society (adopted at New Orleans), to de- 
liver the opening address to the Convention, was then intro- 
duced to the Convention by the President, and delivered an 
address setting forth the duties that had devolved on the 
survivors of the Confederate Army and Navy, in reference to 
the history of the late war. 

On motion of Col. Withers, the Convention then adjourned 
until 10 A. M. to-morrow. 



Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, Va., 
August loth, 1873. 

The Convention met pursuant to adjournment. Gov. 
Letcher in the Chair. 

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and ap- 
proved. 

Gen. George E. Pickett appeared, and took his seat as a 
delegate from Virginia. 

On motion, Wyndham Robertson, Esq., former Acting 
Governor of Virginia, was invited to a seat on tlie floor. 



O PROCEEDINGS OF THE 

Admiral R. Semmes, Chairman, announced that the Com- 
mittee on Business was ready to report, and at his request 
Col. Wm. Preston Johnston then read the following resolu- 
tions reported by the Committee: — 

Resolved, 1. That the headquarters of the Southera Historical Society 
be transferred to Richmoud, Virginia. 

2. That this Convention, in order to carry out the purposes proposed by 
tlie Executive Committee of the Southern Historical Society, at New 
Orleaus, proceed to re-organise the Society, with the object and purposes 
set forth in the annexed paper, as modified, and to elect officers. 

3. That this organisation be retained ou its preseijt basis, and tliat the 
officers shall be a President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer, and 
Executive Committee, resident in the State of Virginia, and a Vice-Presi- 
dent in each of tiie Southern States. 

4. That each Vice-President shall be ex-officio President of the auxiliary 
State Society, and is requested to organise the same and the affiliated local 
Societies. 

5. That the Secretary shall receive a salary to be fixed by the Executive 
Committee. 

6. That the Society adopt some financial scheme to raise funds to carry 
out the purposes of the organisatiou and the publication of its historical 
material. 

7. That the fee of annual membership be three dollars, and of life mem- 
bership fifty dollars. 

8. That the publication of the material collected be made either by means 
of a Magazine, or by occasional volumes of transactions, as may be found 
most expedient. 

9. Tlial the Society as soon as reorganised, proceed to enrol members 
and to extend its membership. 

10. That in all questions touching the organisation of the Society, when 
a division is called for, the vote shall be taken by States, and each State 
shall be entitled to two votes. 

11. That the thanks of the Convention be tendered to the Editor and 
Publishers of The Southern Magazine, for their publication of valuable 
contributions to the history of the Confederate War. 

13. That this Convention offer to General Early its thanks for his able 
and valuable address, and request a copy for publication witli the proceed- 
ings of the Convention, so that a wide circulation may be given to it. _ 

[The following is the paper referred to in the second resolution, being 
the general outline for the original organisation of the Society, as modified 
by the Convention.] 

The Southern Histoeical Society is organised with the following 
general outline : 

A parent society, to hold its seat and its archives in the City of Richmond, 
Virginia, with affiliated societies to be organised in all the States favorable 
to the object proposed; these in their turn branching into local organisa- 
tions in the different townships — forming thus a wide fellowsliip of closely 
co-ordinated societies, with a common centre in the parent association in 
the said city. 

The object proposed to be accomplished is the collection, classification, 
preservation, and final publication, in some form to be hereafter determined, 
of all tlie documents and f:\cts bearing upon the eventful history of the 
past few years, illustrating the nature of the struggle from wliich the 
country has just emerged, defining and vindicating the principles which 
lay beneath it, and marking the stages through which it wasconducted to 
its issue. It is not understood that this association shall be purely sec- 
tional, nor that its labors shall be of a partisan character. 



SOUTHERN HISTOEICAL CONVENTION. 



9 



Evei'ytliing which relates to this critical period of our national history, 
pending the conflict, antecedent or subsequent to it, from the point of view 
of either, or of both the contestants; everything, iu short, which shall 
vindicate the truth of history is to be industriously collated and filed. 

It is doubtless true, that an accepted history can never be written in 
the midst of the stormy events of which that history is composed, nor by 
the agents through whose efficiency they were wrought. The strong pas- 
sions which are evoked in every human conflict disturb the vision and 
warp the judgment, in the scales of whose criticism the necessary facts 
are to be weighed— even the relative importance of these facts cannot be 
measured by those who are iu too close proximity. Scope must be afforded 
for the development of the remote issues before they can be brought 
under the range of a philosophical apprehension ; and the secret thread be 
discovered, running through all history, upon which its single facts crj's- 
tallise in the unity of some great Providential plan. 

The generations of the disinterested must succeed the generations of the 
prejudiced, before history, properly termed such, can be written. This, 
precisely, is the work we now attempt, to construct the archives iu which 
shall be collected these memoirs to serve for future history. 

It is believed that invaluable documents are scattered over the whole 
land, iu loose sheets, perhaps, lying in the portfolios of private gentlemen, 
and only preserved as souvenirs of their own parts in the historic drama. 

Existing in forms so perishable, regarded, it may be, only as so much 
waste paper, by those into whose bauds they must fall, no delay should be 
suflered in their collection and preservation. 

There is doubtless, too, much that is yet unwritten floating only in the 
memories of the living, which if not speedily rescued will be swallowed in 
the oblivion of the grave, but which, if reduced to record and collated, 
would afford the key to many a cipher, in a little while to become unin- 
telligible for want of interpretation. 

All this various material, gathered from every section, will need to be 
industriously classified and arranged, and finally deposited in the central 
archives of the Society, under the care of appropriate guardians. 

To this task of collection, we invite the immediate attention and co- 
operation of our copatriots throughout the South, to facilitate which, we 
propose the organisation of State and district associations, that our whole 
people may be brought in harmony of action in this important matter. 

The rapid changes through which the institutions of the country are 
now passing, and the still more stupendous revolutions in the opinions of 
men, remind us that we stand to-day upon the outer verge of a great his- 
toric cycle, within which a completed past will shortly be enclosed. An- 
other cycle may touch its circumference; but the events it shall embrace 
will be gathered around another historic centre, and the future historian 
will pronounce that in stepping from the one to the other he has entered 
upon another and separate volume of the nation's record. 

Let us, who are soon to be in that past to which we properly belong, 
see there are no gaps in the record. 

Thus shall we discharge a duty to the fathers whose principles we in- 
herit; to the children, who will then know whether to honor or to dis- 
honor the sires that begot them; and above all, to the dead heroes sleep- 
ing on the vast battle plains, from the Susquehannah to the Kio Grande, 
whose epitaph history yet waits to engrave upon their tombs. 

The funds raised by initiation fees, assessments, donations and lectures, 
after defraying the current expenses, will be appropriated to the safe-keep- 
ing of the archives, and publication of the transactions. 

For the accomplishment of these ends contributions are respectfully 
solicited from all parties interested in the establishment and prosperity of 
the Southern Historical Society. 

Contributions to the archives and library of the society arc respectfully 
solicited under the following specific divisions : 



10 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 

1. The histories and historical collections of the individual States from 
the earliest periods to the present time, including travels, journals and 
maps. 

2. Complete files of the newspapers, periodicals, literarj% scientific and 
medical journals of the Southern States, from the earliest times to the 
present day, including, especially the period of the recent American civil 
war. 

3. Geological, topographical, agricultural, manufacturing and commer- 
cial reports, illustrating the statistics, climate, soil, resources, products and 
commerce of the Southern States. 

4. Works, speeches, sermons and discourses relating to the recent con- 
flict and political changes. Congressional and State reports, duriug the 
recent war. 

5. Ofiicial reports and descriptions, by officers and privates and news- 
paper correspondents and eye-witnesses of campaigns, military operations, 
battles and sieges. 

G. Military maps. 

7. Reports upon tl-.e munitions, arms and equipment, organisation, 
numbers and losses of the various branches of the Southern armies — in- 
fantry, artillery, cavalry, ordnance and commissary and quartermaster 
departments. 

8. Reports of the Adjutant General of the late C. S. A., and of the 
Adjutant Generals of the armies, departments, districts and States, show- 
ing the resources of the individual States, the available fighting popula- 
tion, the number, organisation and losses of the forces called into actual 
service. 

9. Naval operations of the Confederate States. 

10. Operations of the Nitre and Mining Bureau. 

11. Commercial operations. 

13. Foreign relations, diplomatic correspondence, etc. 

13. Currency. 

14. Medical statistics and medical reports. 

15. Names of all officers, soldieis and sailors in the military and naval 
service of the Confederate States who were ivilled in battle, or died of 
disease or wounds. 

16. Names of all wounded officers, soldiers and sailors. The nature of 
the wounds should be attached to each name, also the loss of one or more 
limbs should be carefully noted. 

17. Published reports and manuscripts relating to civil prisoners held 
during the war, 

18. All matters, published or unpublished, relating to the treatment, 
diseases, mortality, and exchange of prisoners of war. 

19. The conduct of the hostile armies in the Southern States. Private 
and public losses during the war. Treatment of citizens by hostile forces. 

20. Southern poetry, ballads, songs, etc. 

On motion of Gen. Beauregard, the above resolutions were 
adopted. 

Admiral Semmes then moved that the Convention proceed 
to the reorganisation of tlie Southern Historical Society, 
which motion was adopted. 

Admiral Semmes moved that a recess of twenty (20) 
minutes be taken, to consult upon the nomination of officers. 



SOUTHEEN HISTOEICAL CONVENTION. 11 

Gen. Butler moved, as a substitute, that a Committee be 
appointed to nominate officers. 

Admiral Semmes withdrew his motion in favor of Gen. 
Butler's, which was tlien adopted. 

The President appointed the following Committee on 
Nominations : — 

Gen. G. T. Beauregard, Louisiana, Chairman. 

Hon. R. H. Smith, Nortli Carolina. 

Judge D. A. Vaison, Georgia. 

Admiral R. Semmes, Alabama. 

Maj. F. Chas. Hume, Texas. 

Gen. M. C. Butler, South Carolina. 

Col. W. P. Johnston, Kentucky. 

H. C. Turnbull, Jr., Maryland. 

Gen. "W. T. Martin, Mississippi. 

Gen. A. W. Campbell, Tennessee. 

Gen. Fitzbugli Lee, Virginia. 

A recess of thirty (30) minutes was taken, for the purpose 
of giving the Committee time to consult. 

The Convention reassembled at 2 o'clock p. m. 

The Committee on Nominations, through their Chairman, 
reported the following gentlemen for election as officers of the 
Southern Historical Society. 

President .• 
Gen. JuBAL A. Early, of Virginia. 

Vice-President: 
Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia. . 

Secretary 7,nd ex-officio Treasurer: 
Col. G. W. MuNFORD, of Virginia. 
Vice-Presidents of States : 
Gen. Isaac R. Trimble, Md. Gen. J. B. Hood, La. 

Gov. Zebulon B. Vance, N. C. Col. T. M. Jack, Texas. 
Gen. M. C. Butler, S. C. Hon. A. H. Garland, Ark. 

Gen. A. H. Colquit, Ga. Gov. Isham G. Harris, Tenn. 

Admiral R. Semmes, Ala. Gen. J. S. Marmaduke, Mo. 

Col. W. Call, Fla. Gen. S. B. Buckner. Ky. 

Gen. Wm. T. Martin, Miss. W. W. Corcoran, Esq., D. C. 

On motion, the above gentlemen were unanimously elected 
the officers of the Society. 

Gen. Early offered the followins: resolution : 



12 PROC:']EDJKGS OF THE 

Resolved, That wo r. gret that Gen. Hardee has been de- 
tained from our mcotini;s by illness, and the sympathies of 
the Convention are hereby tendered him, with our best wishes 
for his speedy recovery. 

Gov. Letcher, before offering the resolution, paid a glowing 
tribute to Gen. Hardee. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 

The Chair appointed Admiral Semmes, Gen. Beauregard, 
Gen. T. T. Munford, and Gen. Early, a Committee to convey 
the resolution to Gen. Hardee. 

On motion of Admiral Semmes, Gov. Letcher was added to 
the Committee, as Chairman. 

Gen. Early tendered his thanks to the Convention for the 
honor it had conferred upon him, in making him the Presi- 
dent of the Southern Historical Society. Ho pledged his best 
efforts to secure the success of the organisation. 

The Convention then adjourned, to meet again to-morrow 
mornino; at 11 o'clock. 



August 16th. 1873. 

The Convention met, pursuant to adjournment, at 11 o'clock. 
Gov. Letcher in the Chair. 

The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved. 

Gov. Letcher gave notice of the expected arrival of Presi- 
dent Davis, and suggested the propriety of an adjournment of 
the Convention till Monday, and the appointment of a Com- 
mittee to receive the President. 

On motion of Gen. Beauregard, the Chair appointed a 
Committee, composed of the following gentlemen : 

Gen. Beauregard, Admiral Semmes, Gen. Early, Gen. Lilly, 
and Gen. T. T. Munford. 



SOUTHERN HTSTOEICAL CONVENTION. lo 

And on motion, Gov. Letcher was added to the Committee, 
as Chairman thereof. 

Admiral Semmes gave notice of a desire to make some re- 
marks, before the Convention should finally adjourn, in de- 
fence of certain points in his own career which had been 
vigorously assailed. 

Gen. Early fixed the hour of 12 M. to-day for a meeting of 
the Southern Historical Society, and requested Admiral 
Semmes, if convenient, to deliver his address at that hour, and 
before the Society. 

Gen. Fitzhugh Lee gave notice that there was an organisa- 
tion in A'^irginia, known as the Virginia Division of the Asso- 
ciation of the Army of Northern Virginia, which held its 
sessions annually in the city of Richmond, Va., and that the 
next session would be held on the thirtieth (30) October next; 
when an address would be delivered by Col. Chas. S. Ven- 
able, of Gen. R. E. Lee's Staff, to which he cordially iuvited 
the soldiers and sailors of the Confederate States. 

On motion, the Convention adjourned till 11 o'clock, A. M,, 
Monday. 



Monday, August 18th, 1873. 

The Convention met, pursuant to adjournment. Gov. 
Letcher in the Chair. 

Meeting called to order. The minutes of the last meeting 
were read and approved. 

Gov. Letcher, addressing the Convention as Chairman of 
the Committee to present the resolution adopted, tendering the 
sympathies of the Convention to Gen. Hardee, reported that 
the Committee had performed its duty. 



14 PROCEEDINGS, &C. 

Admiral Semmes then presented to tlie Convention Presi- 
dent Davis. 

The Convention received him standing. 

Gov. Letcher, in a short address, cordially welcomed Presi- 
dent Davis, who madean appropriate acknowledgment, in an 
address of a few minutes, to the Convention. 

Gov. Letcher now gave notice that the Convention was 
ready for business. 

Admiral Semmes offered the following preamble and reso- 
lutions: 

WlicreaSy each generatioa of men owes the debt to posterity to hand 
down to it a correct history of the more important events that have trans- 
pired in its day ; 

And whereas, the history of awcvy people is the common inheritance of 
mankind, because of the k'ssons it may teach ; 

And whereas, for the purposes of history, the people of the late Con- 
federate States were a separate people from the people of the North, 
during the four years of conflict which they maintained against them ; 

And icJiereas, uo people loving the truth of history can have any object 
or motive in suppressing or mutilating any fact which may be material to 
the proper elucidation of history : 

Tlierefore, he it Resolved, by the Convention of the Southern Historical 
Society, in session at the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, in Virginia, 
and composed of delegates from all the Southern States, that his Excel- 
lency President Grant, of these United States, be respectfully requested to 
permit the Secretary of the Southern Historical Society to inspect all 
papers that were captured by the forces of the United States, during the 
late war, from Confederate States' officers or citizens, and to make copies 
of such of them as he may think fit, now in the possession or under the 
control of the Government of the United States, for the purpose of en- 
abling the said Society the better to perform the duty, which it has pre- 
scribed to itself, of perpetuating the testimony on which the future historian 
of this the most memorable of the wars of mankind, is to base his history. 

General Martin seconded the adoption of the preamble and 
resolutions, and the same were unanimously adopted. 

There being no more business before the Convention, on 
motion of Gen. Early, it adjourned sine die. 

JOHN LETCHER, President. 
JOHN A. A. WEST, AssH Secretary. 



Southern Historical Society. 



MOKTGOMERY WhITE SuLPHUK SpEINGS, Va., 

September 16ih, 1873, 

A number of persons having enrolled themselves as mem- 
bers of the Southern Historical Society, notice was given by 
the President elect, General Jubal A. Early, that there would 
be a special meeting to-day (September 16th, 1873) in the 
ball-room, and at the said time and place the Society was 
called to order by the President, who assumed the chair. 

General Thomas T. Munford was appointed Acting Secre- 
tary, in the absence of the regular Secretary, and Major John 
A. A. West was appointed assistant acting Secretary. 

Admiral Semmes was then introduced to the Society, and 
delivered an able address, in review of comments and criti- 
cisms that had been made on his career as a naval commander 
in the Confederate service. 

After a few remarks by the President in reference to the 
objects to be accomplished by the Society, and the mode of 
extending its organisation, on motion, the Society adjourned 
until 11 o'clock Monday, the 18th, at the same place. 



(15J 



16 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 

Monday, September \%th, 1873. 
Tlie Society was called to order, the President in the chair. 

The President then announced that it would be impractic- 
able for him at present to appoint the Executive Committee, 
but that he could now announce General Dabney H. Maury 
as chairman of it, leaving the other members to be appointed 
hereafter. 

Colonel Wm. Preston Johnston then offered the following 
resolutions for adoption by the Society : — 

Resolved, That the funds that have been and shall be col- 
lected before the appointment of the Executive Committee, 
shall be deposited in a bank in Lyncliburg, subject to the 
order of the President of the Society, who is requested to see 
to the prompt and accurate publication of copies of the pro- 
ceedings and addresses on this occasion. 

Resolved, That Admiral Semraes be requested to place his 
fair and able vindication of the conduct of Confederate 
cruisers, delivered on Saturday, at the disposal of tlie Society, 
and, if agreeable to him, that the same be included in the 
publication of the proceedings of the Society. 

Resohed, That the women of the South who desire to do 
so, may enroll themselves as members of the Southern His- 
torical Society, in the name and on behalf of friends and 
relatives who have fiillen in the contest, or wiio having 
shared its perils, have since died. 

On motion, the said resolutions were unanimously adopted. 

On motion, the Society then adjourned, to meet at Rich- 
mond, Va., on the call of the President. 

J. A. EARLY, President. 

T. T. MUNFORD, Acting ."Secretary. 

Note. — The address of Admiral Semmcs, referred to iu cue of the 
above resoUuious, lias not becu furuished, but will be filed by him with 
llie Sccrctaiy, to be published hereafter. 



SOUTHEEN HISTOEIOAL CONVENTION. 17 

Tlie following persons have been appointed members of 
the Executive Committee of the Southern Historical Society, 
in order to complete its organisation : — 

General Dabney H. Maury, Richmond, Va., Chairman. 

Colonel Charles S. Venable, University of Virginia. 

Colonel Wm. Preston Johnston, Washington and Lee University, 

Lexington, Va. 
Colonel Robert E. Withers, Wytheville, Va. 
Colonel Joseph Mayo, Richmond, Va. 
Rev. John Wra. Junes, " " 

Lieut.-Colonel Archer Anderson, Richmond, Va. 
Major Robert Stiles, Richmond, Va. 
George L. Christian, Esq., Richmond, Va. 

J. A. EARLY, President 8. H. S. 



ADDRESS 
TO THE SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION, 

By GENERAL JUBAL A. EARLY. 



On the 9tli of June, 1873, the Southern Historical Society, 
at New Orleans, adopted the following resolution : 

^'■Resolved, That General Early be requested to open the Convention 
"with an address." 

In accordance with the request made in the said resolution, 
General Early delivered the following address to the Conven- 
tion, on the 14tli of August, 1873, after its organisation: — 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention : 

Permit me, in the first place, to extend to those of you who 
come from other States, a cordial welcome to Virginia — a State 
Avhich, however illustrious she may have been in her past re- 
cord and history, has in our day been rendered still more 
illustrious by the deeds performed on her soil by soldiers from 
all parts of the late Confederate States, in defence of the grand- 
est human cause for Avhich man has ever fought. That soil 
has been freely drenched with the blood, and has received into 
its bosom the mortal remains of those who were among the 
best, ti'uest, and bravest of the sons of all the South. It is 
not, therefore, inappropriate that, as representatives of the 
survivors of the Ai-mies and Kavy of the Southern Confed- 
eracy, we should assemble here, amid the mountains and val- 
leys of a State so marked in the history of our straggle, to 
concert measures for preserving and perpetuating the memory 
of the principles involved and the deeds performed in that 



ADDEESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EAELY. 19 

struggle. To those of our comrades whose fortune it was to 
uphold with so much gallantry and devotion, on other fields 
or on the high seas, the standard of the common cause, this 
welcome is given with fully as much cordiality as to those 
whose lot it was to follow the lead of the immortal Lee and 
Jackson. 

In proceeding to discharge the duty assigned me by a res- 
olution adopted at New Orleans by " The Southern Historical 
Society," I must take occasion to express a sense of my inability 
to perform that duty in a satisfactory manner, and my regret 
that it has not been devolved on one more competent. Having 
undertaken it, however, I must bespeak your kind and patient 
indulgence while I address to you some remarks, which I trust 
may not be without their uses, though clothed in the plain 
language of a soldier. I have heretofore given expression .to 
some of my views on subjects which come within the scope of 
such an address as it has occurred to me would be suitable to 
this occasion ; and as neither with my tongue nor my pen am I 
very expert in the use of language, and my imagination is not 
very fertile in tropes and figures of rhetoric — in fact, as my 
tongue is not double and my mind not subject to frequent 
changes, so that what I think and say at one time on any sub- 
ject, I am apt to think and say at another on the same sub- 
ject — I shall have to repeat much of what I have heretofore 
said on other occasions. 

" History is the philosophy of examples," was the remark 
of Dionysius of Halicarnassus ; or, as it is rendered by a distin- 
guished English writer and statesman of the early part of the 
last century. Lord Bolingbroke, " History is philosophy teach- 
ing by examples ; " and in citing the remark, Bolingbroke has 
followed it with some very admirable reflections on the pro- 
priety and necessity of examples, remote as well as immediate, 
in all teachings, spiritual as well as secular. 

The famous New England lexicographer, Webster, in his 
unabridged dictionary, says that "History and story are the 
same word differently written ; " and in giving the definitions 
of the word " Story," he defines it under one head to be : "A 
trifling tale ; a fiction ; a fable ; as, the story of a fairy : " and 
he adds : " In popular usage, story is sometimes a softer term 
for a lie." 

Judging from the character of most, if not all, of the so- 



SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

called histories of om- war which have appeared, there is good 
reason to suspect that their authors have adopted Webster's 
idea that the two words are synonymous, and taking the defi- 
nitions of the word " story " which I have cited as the true 
meaning of both words, have imagined that in giving the fie. 
tions and ftibles with which their books abound, they have 
really been Avriting history. And I am soriy to say that this 
misapprehension does not appear to be confined to Northern 
authors, but seems to have been shai*ed to a great extent by 
some Southern writers on the war. 

According to the mythology of the Ancients, history Avas 
jiresided over by one of the Muses, who was usually repre- 
sented as a beautiful and stately virgin, crowned with laurels, 
and holding in one hand a trumpet and in the other a scroll. 
Even in those days she did not pass without reproach, for it 
is related of her that, having excited the anger of Yenus by 
taunting her with her 4ove for Adonis, the bosom of the pru- 
dish maiden was inspired by the ii-ato goddess with an ardent 
afi'ection for one of the opposite sex, and that she likewise 
became a victim to the tender passion. In our day, if we are 
to judge by the number and character of her votaries, the 
Muse of History has become a thorough flirt and coquette — a 
very Doll}^ Yarden, fully imbued with the ruling passion for 
the prevailing mode. With her ever-changing smiles, her 
highly-rouged cheeks, her tumbling cataracts or towering pyr- 
amids of artificial hair, and her figui'c distorted by all the 
whimsical contrivances of most capricious and extravagant 
fashion, it would be impossible for one of her ancient votaries 
to recognise in her the fair j)roportions of the once comely 
damsel. Nevertheless as, notwithstanding all the efforts at 
disguise, there is much of grace and beauty in the outward 
form and features of woman that will enforce and enchain 
our admiration, and still more of loveliness in her inward na- 
ture that will make itself felt and appreciated when subjected 
to the ordeal, so there is an innate power in the truth which 
will command the attention of mankind ; and History will yet 
vindicate her claim to the title given her by the historian of 
old. 

Let it be our task to strip the Muse of Historj' of the taw- 
dry vestments and meretricious ornaments by Avhich her real 
beauty has been obscured, and present her once more to the 



ADDEESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 21 

world in her proper guise, as the patroness and guardian of 
the truth. 

We have some very short-sighted mentors who conjure us 
to cast the mantle of oblivion over the past, and much has 
been spoken and written about closing the bloody chasm that 
j^awns between the two sections of the country. However, , 
none of our modern Curtiuses propose to close that chasm by 
plunging into it ; their chief desire seeming to be to bridge ove^" 
the chasm, in order that they may plunge their hands into the 
flesh-pots on the other side, whose savor is too great a temp- 
tation for their virtue — and the bloody chasm still j^awns, and 
will continue to do so. 

It is idle to talk about forgetting the past. AVe could not 
forget if we would, and I trust that there are many of us who 
would not forget if we could. When the captive Jews sat 
down by the rivers of Babylon, and wept for the desolation of 
their land, their captors and spoilers required of them mirth, 
saying, " Sing us one of the songs of Zion ; " but they hanged 
their harps upon the willows; and the Psalmist has put into 
their mouths this indignant protest: 

" How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ? 

" If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her 
cunning. 

"If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the 
roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief 

joy." 

Can it be expected that we shall prove less faithful than they ? 

In our day and generation we have witnessed more of devo- 
tion and heroism exhibited in a struggle for the right of self- 
government, than were ever exhibited in any previous struggle ; 
and if we were to attempt to erase all traces of the con- 
test through which we have gone, it would be a vain task, for 
the world will not permit the memory of such deeds as were 
performed on the battle-fields of the Confederacy — nay, on this 
very soil of Virginia — to die. In this century the pyramids, 
the tombs, and the ruined temples and cities of ancient Egypt 
and Ethiopia have been explored, and long-forgotten hiero- 
glyphics have been deciphered, at great cost and labor, for the 
purpose of ascertaining the true history of peoples long since 
supplanted by other and conquering races. The ruins of Nin- 
eveh, of Babylon the Great, and of the other cities of ancient 



22 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

Assyria and Babylonia, including the supposed site of the Tower 
of Babel itself, have been excavated, in order to discover, on 
crumbling bricks and tablets, in inscriptions made in cuneiform 
characters, authentic traces of the history of peoples whose 
descendants no longer have a distinct 0/ recognised existence 
on the face of the earth. And within this very year an enter- 
prising German savant has been engaged in the effort to dis- 
cover, on the classic banks of the Seamander, the site of ancient 
Troy, whose very existence has been regarded by many as a 
myth. 

How, then, can it be imagined that the leading events of a 
struggle which, during its continuance, electrified the whole 
civilised world by the grandeur of the sacrifices endured and 
of the deeds performed by a people who were fighting for their 
sacred rights, against such odds and difficulties as had never 
been encountered in any previous struggle, will be permitted 
to fade from the memories of men ? It is a vain delusion, an 
idle dream. 

Nor will the interest in our struggle be lost because we were 
not successful. The enlightened world does not accept as an 
infallible maxim, that success is the only criterion of merit. 
Sir Walter Scott it is, I believe, who has said, "Brave blood 
was ne'er shed in vain ; " and Byron has said with great power 
and truth : 

" They never fail who die 
In a great cause. The block may soak their gore ; 
Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs 
Be strung to city gates and castle walls — 
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years 
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, 
^fhey but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
Which o'erpower all others, and conduct 
The world at last to freedom." 

The unreflecting masses may adoi)t as a maxim that " It is 
better to worship the rising than the setting sun ; " and time- 
servers may — 

" Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning" — 

a phrase far more hackneyed in the performance than in the 
quotation even — and there may be too much truth in the 
words of the j)oet who has said : 



ADDRESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 23 

"It is success that colors all in life ; 
Success makes fools admired, makes villains honest. 
All the proud virtue of this vaunting world 
Fawns on success and power, however acquired." 

Yet by the discerning good and true of all ages and climes — 
those who believe that justice, right, and truth are as eternal 
as the throne of Him who is " from everlasting to everlast- 
ing" — it has been, and will continue to be, thought better to 
deserve success than to achieve it ; and by such, the deeds ot 
the virtuous and truly great will always be valued according 
to their real merit, though success may not have crowned 
them. Nay, it is mainly among the contemporaries of the 
favorites of fortune that are found those sordid enough to 
worship exclusively at the shrine of success and power ; but 
when we come to review the transactions of the past, the 
sj'mpathies of mankind are generally with the unfortunate, 
especially if they had virtue and right on their side. Boling- 
broke, in his letter on the spirit of patriotism, has said: "For- 
tune maintains a kind of rivalry with wisdom, and piques her- 
self often in favor of fools as well as knaves." Seneca has 
said : " The noblest spectacle, which the gods can behold, is a 
virtuous man suffering and struggling with afflictions ; " and 
in quoting this remark Bolingbroke adds : " I will say that 
the second Cato, driven out of the forum and dragged to 
prison, enjoj^ed more inward pleasure, and maintained more 
outward dignity, than they who insulted him, and who tri- 
umphed in the ruin of their country." 

The story of the siege and fall of Troy, as it appears in .the 
heroic verse of Homer and of Virgil, mythic though it be to a 
great extent, has a charm for the youthful fancy and feelings 
of the school-boy plodding through the classics, which is not 
lost in old age; and that story will live as long as time exists. 
The action of the Grecian heroes, as portrayed by Homer, cap- 
tivates the imagination ; but it is the picture of the pious 
vEneas escaping from the smouldering ruins of fated Troy, 
bearing his aged father on his shoulders, cariying his house- 
hold gods in his arms, and leading his youthful son by the 
hand, as given by Virgil, that appeals most powerfully to all 
the sympathies and softer emotions of the heart. And from 
this story, too, obscured as it is by much that is fabulous, a 
lesson is to be gathered. Thouc-h the aveufjing Greeks were 



24 SOUTHEEN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

triumphant, and the " heavenly built walls" of "sacred Troy" 
were so effectually rased that their very site has for many 
ages been a matter of speculation, the pious ^^aeas, after en- 
countering many vicissitudes of fortune by sea and land, 
finally landed on the shores of Latium, where his descendants 
built a city and founded a people and government which sub- 
dued, among other nations, that very Greece b}' whose arms 
Troy fell, and became and remained Tor many centuries "the 
mistress of the world." Ever since, " the Eternal City " has ex- 
ercised a most important influence over the destinies of man- 
kind, and it has lately been restored to the position of the cap- 
ital of re-united Italy ; whilst Greece, once the abode of demi- 
gods and heroes, of philosophers and sages, of jioets, orators, 
and statesmen, has long since sunk into a state of imbecility 
and degradation from which she cannot rise, though she has 
had the sympathies of the civilised world and the material 
aid of the most powerful nations of Europe. ^^Fiiit Ilium " is 
the brief sentence which recorded the fate of Troy, but that 
of Greece has been even more sad : ■ 

" 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more ! " 

and brigands roam in what Avere "the groves of the Academy." 
Let us take courage, and not despair because we have had 
another instance, in our own experience, of the fact that 
" might is often more powerful than right." 

It has been incautiously said that "we submitted our rights 
to the arbitrament of ai'ms, and the decision was against us ; 
therefore it is our duty to accept the result as final and con- 
clusive ; " and it has even been declared that " the highest law 
that can exist is that established by force of arms." The first 
statement is not true in any sense. The people of the South 
asserted rights which had been secured by the valor of their 
ancestors, and which had descended to them by an indisput- 
able title. When those rights were unconstitutionally assailed, 
and their homes and firesides were most wrongfully threatened 
and invaded, they rushed to arms to defend all that was dear 
to them, against the fire and sword of the invaders. It is a 
most gross perversion of language to call this a "submission of 
their rights to the arbitrament of arms." The other declara- 
tion embodies the sentiment of the red-handed conqueror, with 



ADDEESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EAELY. 25 

his foot on the neck of his victims, as well as of the robber on 
the highway. When it comes from one Avho was overpowered 
by physical power in a manly struggle for the right, we can 
but weej) over the frailty that is not proof against the tempta- 
tions of adversity. We are bound to accept the miraculous 
conversion of the persecuting Saul on his way to Damascus, 
for that was a case of Divine interposition and revelation ; but 
the thorough and radical conversion from the cherished senti- 
ments of a lifetime, that could be produced only by four years 
of dreadful, though glorious, war in defence of those senti- 
ments — and which conversion was not developed until all was 
lost and policy pointed the way to it — makes too great a de- 
mand on our faith. It is a most lamentable spectacle to behold 
one of the newly fledged proselytes attempting to keep step 
in the march to the tune of "John Brown's soul goes march- 
ing on." It is very certain that there is no more truth now in 
the Latin phrase Vox populi, vox Dei, than there was when the 
people cried, " Crucify him ! Crucify him ! " 

Some one has said that " Nations cannot commit great 
crimes with impunity, any more than can individuals ; " and 
all history, sacred and profane, vindicates the truth of the re- 
mark. There is a great compensating principle in the moral 
law, as applied to nations as well as to individuals, which ren- 
ders it certain that, when its cardinal precepts have been vio- 
lated, the day of retribution will come, sooner or later. From 
all time of which we have any record, nations and governments 
have risen, flourished and fallen, and their fall has in each case, 
almost invariably, been preceded by a loss of public virtue, 
an inordinate greed for the acquisition of money, the spread of 
luxury and corruption, and the commission of great national 
crimes. In the century in which we live thei'e have been no- 
table instances of the instability of human governments. 
Within the lives of many now living, and perhaps of some 
within the sound of my voice, the first French Empire has 
arisen with resplendent glory, and after disturbing the peace 
of all Europe and threatening its subjugation, has gone down 
n ignominious disaster — its founder and chief having dragged 
out the remnant of his existence on a barren rock in the ocean. 
The second Empire has arisen within the memory of all of us; 
and though but a little more than three years ago it was re- 
garded as the most powerful and best established government 



26 SOUTHEEN HISTOEICAL CONVENTION. 

in all Europe, we have witnessed its sudden downfall, and the 
recent death in exile of its head ; while a power that was 
nearly crushed out by the first Empire, and was seriously 
threatened by the second, has risen to the first rank among 
the nations of the earth, and has taken most signal vengeance 
on its old adversary. 

Rest assui'ed that, sooner or later, a just retribution will 
overtake the commission of the foulest political crime the 
world has ever witnessed — the utter annihilation of the au- 
tonomy of eleven free, sovereign States, and the subjection of 
the intelligent, virtuous populations of most of them to the 
rule of an ignorant and inferior race, utterly incapable of un- 
derstanding the first principles of government, and in turn con- 
trolled and ruled for the very worst purposes by a vile herd 
of alien adventurers, swindlers, and thieves. 

Already, in the unrebuked corruption which stalks abroad, 
the accumulation of ill-gotten wealth, the prevalence of " rings" 
formed for the purposes of public plunder, the rage for luxury, 
and the stolid indifference manifested by the masses in regard 
to the monstrous wrongs which are now being committed, 
under the hardly colorable pretext of liberty and constitutional 
law, but really in utter contempt of both, — as for instance in 
Louisiana, South Carolina, and other Southern States, — may 
be discerned the evidences of that decay which precedes the 
end ; and the thoughtful and observant cannot fail to perceive 
the indications of " the handwriting on the wall," though the 
knees of our Belshazzars — for we have many — may not smite 
the " one against the other," because they are drunk with 
their revelries or blinded by their passions. 

It is a moral impossibility that even the semblance of repub- 
lican government can long exist when the voice of what were, 
and ought now to be, sovereign States, is suppressed by the 
unscrupulous agents of the central government, and the acts 
and usurpations of those agents ai-e sustained by that govern- 
ment. The gangrene is in the system, and it will spread 
wider and Avider until the whole body-politic decays, rots, 
and falls to pieces ; and he who does not see the inevitable 
fate approaching, is either ignorant of the teachings of history 
or has studied them to very little purpose. The power of 
money, or the national debt, though it may retard, cannot 
arrest the progress to final destruction : that debt is the price 
of blood, and no blessing can attend it. 



ADDEESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 27 

May we not be permitted to exclaim, in the language of the 
despoiled Jews as given in the Psalm from which I have 
already quoted — "O daughter of Babylon, w^ho art to be 
desti'oyed ! happy shall he be that rewardest thee as thou 
hast served us ! " 

Mighty and startling events have transpired within the last 
decade. Who can say what revolutions the present or next 
one may not bring forth? 

It was said of old that no man can be counted happy until 
he dies; and the question whether we were not more fortu- 
nate in having made a noble struggle for our liberties, though 
we lost them, than the enemies who overcame us, and in doing 
so sapped the very foundations of liberty, is in the womb of 
time. 

There is one thing which is very certain : we cannot escape 
the ordeal of history. Before its bar we must appear, either 
as criminals — rebels and traitors seeking to throw oif the 
authority of a legitimate government to which we were bound 
by the ties of allegiance — or as patriots defending our rights 
and vindicating the true principles of the government founded 
by our fathers. In the former character our enemies are 
seeking to present us, not only by their historical records, 
but by their literature and by the whole scope and tendency 
of their legislation and governmental policy. Shall we permit 
the indictment to go forth to the world and to posterity 
without a vindication of our motives and our conduct ? Are 
we willing that our enemies shall be the historians of our 
cause and our struggle ? No ! a thousand times no ! The 
men who by their deeds caused so many of the battle-fields 
of the South to blaze with a glory unsurpassed in the annals 
of the world, cannot be so recreant to the princijjles for which 
they fought, the traditions of the past, and the memory of 
their comrades " dead upon the field of honor," as to abandon 
the tribunal of history to those before whose immense num- 
bers and physical power alone they were finally compelled to 
yield from mere exhaustion. Nor can we trust our vindica- 
tion to the pens of the non-combatants on our own side, who, 
if not workers of mischief in their spheres, wei-e of no material 
assistance to us in the terrible conflict. It is a high and 
solemn duty which those who were part and parcel of it owe 
to their dead comrades, to themselves, and to posterity, to 



28 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

vindicate the lionor and glory of our cause in the history of 
the struggle made in its defence. 

If we examine the reports and histories of our enemies, we 
will find some very cui-ious and amusing statements in them ; 
and it is a notable fact that the commanders of the Federal 
armies, their apologists and eulogists, maintain that they were 
outnumbered in most of the great battles of the war. McClel- 
lan maintains that our numbers were nearly double his own in 
the battles around Richmond ; Pope declares that he w^as over- 
powered by numbers at second Manassas ; JMcClellan again in- 
sists that he was greatly outnumbered at Sharpsburg; and 
General Humphreys, Chief of the United States Engineer 
Corps, in his eulogy on Meade, asserts that the latter was 
outnumbered at Gettj^sburg. These are but specimens of such 
claims ; and it is a little singular that some one has not con- 
tended that Grant was outnumbered at Appomattox. Sher- 
idan came very near asserting that j^roposition, if it be true 
that he informed the Prussian commander that the surrender 
of Sedan was the exact counterpart of that of Appomattox. 

As Humphreys' eulogy has but recently met my eye, I will 
take some notice of it. He says that Meade had, at Gettys- 
burg, only 70,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 300 pieces of 
artillery. He also says that the Federal loss was 23,000; and 
that on the morning of the 5th of July, after the battle, there 
were but 61,000 men present for duty in Meade's whole army, 
making, then, his whole force at the beginning of the battle 
84,000; so that there were but 4,000 men for the artillery. 
Now, on the 20th of October previous, according to the official 
returns, (Yol. 1, 1st series, of the Eeport on the Conduct of the 
War, p. 534,) there was an aggregate of 207,036 for duty in 
the Army of the Potomac, a little over 73,000 being in the de- 
fences of AYashington, and over 133,000 with McClcllan in the 
field. There had been only the battles of Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsville, two or three cavalry engagements, and the 
capture of Winchester ; and the question is, what had become 
of the immense force of 207,000 men who were in the Army 
of the Potomac, and the defences of Washington, in October 
previous ? Meade, in his testimony before the Committee on 
the Conduct of the War, (Vol. I, 2d series, p. 337,) says that 
he understood "Washington was quite stripped." Humphreys 
says that General Lee had at Gettysburg 85,000 infantry, 



ADDEESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EAELY. 29 

8,000 cavalry, and a due proportion of artillery. It would be 
a rather interesting inquiry to ascertain how General Hum- 
phreys knew so circumstantially the strength of our army ; 
and how it happened that his information differed so widely 
from the estimates of all the officers attached to that army. 
And then, too, if the Confederate Government, with its limited 
population and resources, was, after two years of the war had 
elapsed, able to put into the field 93,000 infantry and cavalry, 
with a due proportion of artillery, for the invasion of Penn- 
sylvania, while the Government at Washington, with its im- 
mense resources, and its population of 22,000,000 and the rest 
of the world to recruit from, was able to raise only 84,000 
men of all arms for the defence of the Ivej^stone State and 
the JS^ational Capitol — what must be the judgment of the 
world as to the relative efficiency of the two Governments, 
and the patriotism of their respective adherents ? 

In his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of 
the War, (Vol. I, 2d series, p. 337,) Meade says: "Including 
all arms of the service, my strength was a little under 100,- 
000 — about 95,000." The official returns of the Confederate 
Armies, on file in the Archive Office at Washington — access to 
which is denied all Confederates, but from which Swinton, the 
historian of the Army of the Potomac, made condensed state- 
ments, which were published in the New York Tribune in June, 
1867 — show, present for duty, in all the Department of North- 
ern Yirginia, at the close of May, 1863, 68,352 men and officers. 
This included the Army of Northern Virginia, and all troops 
on separate or detached duty in the Department. The move- 
ment into Pennsylvania began on the 4th of June, and there 
had been no reinforcements since the returns for May had been 
made, and there were none after that time, excej)t perhaps 
two regiments of cavalry. Of course some troops had to be 
left in Virginia, and the whole force of all arms with which 
we entered Pennsylvania was less than 60,000 men, and we 
had not more than half as many guns as the enemy. I com- 
manded one of the nine infantry divisions of the ai'my, which 
was about an average one ; and the day before I crossed the 
Potomac, I had, as shown by my official return, now in my 
possession, 5,638 officers and men for duty, including a bat- 
talion of artillery attached to the division. 

General Humphreys is wider of the mark in estimating our 



30 SOUTHERN HISTOEIOAL CONVENTION. 

losses than our strength. According to him, (rettysburg was 
another Waterloo, with the part of Bluecher left out; but I 
will add that there was no such command from his side as 
"Up Guards and at 'em! " I will, however, do him the justice to 
say that he is entirely correct in one respect : He says that if 
Meade had assaulted General Lee in the position covering Wil- 
liamsport, he would have been repulsed with heavy loss. There 
is no doubt about that. I was in a position to know the condi- 
tion of our troops on the march back, as my division was the 
rear-guard to the army on retiring from Gettysbui'g. I did 
not leave sight of the enemy's position there until late in the 
day on the 5th, and Sedgwick with the Sixth Corps, which 
had not been seriously engaged, and some cavalry, followed 
me, but at a most respectful distance. When, by reason of the 
trains being blocked up at Fairfield, near the base of South 
Mountain, he came up, and I formed line to meet him, he did 
not venture to attack, though the greater part of our army 
had passed over the mountain. 

Federal officers are exceedingly loth to accept the truth in 
regard to our strength, and they try to conceal their own. 
Hence, as I am informed, all access to the Federal returns, as well 
as to the Confederate records in the Archive Office, is studiousl}^ 
denied to all Confederates. When the future student of the his- 
tory of our war conies to examine the Federal statements and 
sees how often the armies on that side were outnumbered, and 
then tui'ns to the census next preceding the war to elucidate the 
matter, he will be lost in amazement, and will be apt to come to 
the conclusion that the Southern peoi:)le were all men and the 
Northern people nearly all women, or that their men were 
very inferior specimens of the neuter gender. 

I will call attention to another statement of General Hum- 
phreys. He says that Meade had, at the beginning of the 
battle of the Wilderness, 76,000 infantry in the three corps of 
the Army of the Potomac, 12,000 cavalry, and a large force of 
artillery, and that on the 6th of May he was joined by the 
Ninth Corps, 15,000 or 20,000 strong. Now Mr. Stanton has 
had something to say about this matter, and in his final re- 
port on the war he says that the official reports show an 
" aggregate available force present for duty May 1st, 1864," 
in the Army of the Potomac, of 120,384, and in the Ninth 
Corps of 20,780, making Grant's Avhole force 141,160 present 



ADDRESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 31 

and available for duty. The movement across the Eapidan 
began on the night of the 3d of May, 1864, and the battle of 
the Wilderness on the morning of the 6th. If Stanton and 
General Humphreys are both right in their statements, then 
Meade must have had over 32,000 artillerymen — a force suf- 
ficient, according to the ratio of men to guns at Gettysburg, 
to man some 2,400 pieces of artillery I Humphreys says Gen- 
eral Lee had 60,000 infantry, 8,000 or 10,000 cavalry, and a 
due proportion of artillery. The same statement from the re- 
turns in the Archive Office to which I have referred, show 
in all the Department of Northern Virginia at the close of 
April, 1864, 52,626 men and officers of all arms for duty, and 
it is well known that we received no accessions after that 
time before the campaign opened, and in fact until a late 
period of it. General Lee really began the campaign with 
less than 50,000 effective men. Meade's eulogist admits that 
in the series of battles beginning with the Wilderness, the 
Army of the Potomac lost more than 60,000 men in killed and 
wounded. If he be correct in his statement of the strength 
of that army, and there was not more than the usual propor- 
tion of artillery, then the Army of the Potomac was very 
nearly destroyed by the time it reached the James. Mr. Stan- 
ton's statement from the official returns in the War Office was 
a very unfortunate one for those Federal officers and histo- 
rians who have sought to understate the real strength of 
Grant's army, and it is to be remarked that the}^ all studiously 
avoid any reference to the numbers received by way of rein- 
forcements at Spotsylvania and elsewhere. Well, perhaps it 
is not to be w^ondered at, for a full disclosure of all the facts 
would present a most astounding state of things, and would 
wonderfully dwarf some of the reputations gained on that 
side. 

Major-General John Pope gained a reputation during the 
war in one respect, in which he has been generally supposed 
to be without a rival; but he did not enjoy a monopoly in 
that particular any more than he who is generally known as 
" Beast Butler " did in another. Halleck's despatch immedi- 
ately after the evacuation of Corinth in 1862 is perhaps Avell 
remembered, but Pope's exjilanation is not generally known. 
In his report to the Committee on the Conduct of the War, 
made after the close of hostilities, (Supplement to the Commit- 
tee's Keport, part II, page 76,) Pope says : 



32 SOUTHEKN HISTOEICAL CONVENTION. 

It becomes my duty in this place, and it is with pain that I feel 
obliged to perform it, to invite attention to an error which it has always 
been ray purpose to correct as soon as it could be done without injury 
to the public interests. The day after my command reached its perma- 
nent camp on Clear Creek (the 12th of June), I saw in the newspapers 
that day received, the following publication : 

"General Halleck's Headquarters, 
June 4th, 1862. 
" General Pope with forty thousand men is thirty miles south of Co- 
rinth, pushing the enemy hard. He already reports ten thousand pris- 
oners and deserters from the enemy, and fifteen thousand stand of arms 
captured. Thousands of the enemy are throwing away their arms. A 
farmer says that when Beauregard learned that Colonel Elliott had cut 
the railroad on his line of retreat, he became frantic, and told his men to 
save themselves the best way they could. We have captured nine loco- 
motives and a number of cars ; one of the former is already repaired and 
is running to day. Several more will be in running order in two or three 
days. The result is all I could possibly desire. 

" Hon. E. M. Stanton, H. W. Halleck, 

Secretary of War. Major -Oeneral Commanding.'^ 

Pope goes on to say : 

I copy this dispatch in full, though it is only concerning the first part 
of it that I have any remarks to make. I need scarcely say, after this 
prefiice, that I never made such a report, nor anything like it, as is stated 
in the dispatch above quoted. I was very much surprised when first I saw 
it in the papers, and immediately pointed it out to my adjutant-general 
and other officers of my staff, who were equally surprised with myself. So 
far from being thirty miles south of Corinth on the date of this dispatch, 
I was sick in my tent, not four miles distant from General Hal leek's head- 
quarters, from the 2d until the 5th of June, and was in telegraphic com- 
munication with him during the whole of that time, so that I think he 
must have known the fact. 

Pope evidently preferred doing his own "romancing," but 
from patriotic motives, and an unselfish regard for the best 
intei'csts of the nation whose life was at stake, he concluded 
to remain silent and be entirely harmonious with the powers 
that wei'c, especially as Halleck was soon made commander- 
in-chief at Washington, and he himself was placed in command 
of an army in Virginia, with which he proposed to crush out 
the "rebellion" in a very short period of time. After the 
war, however, he opened a correspondence on the subject with 
Halleck, who evaded the question and went off to California, 
leaving the disputed i")oint unsettled. We may not be able to 
perceive very clearly how the interests of a great nation could 
be subserved by permitting such a monstrous fabrication to go 
so long without contradiction by him who, to the world at 
large, was the ostensible author of it; but doubtless such 



ADDRESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EAELY. 33 

matters were better understood by the people of " grand 
moral ideas." 

Justice demands that I should say that Pope's fame in his 
peculiar line did not long remain under an eclipse by this 
performance of his commanding officer, as I could abundantly 
demonstrate to yon were I to go into an examination of the 
notable variances between his own avowed despatches and the 
actual results of the brief but eventful campaign he conducted 
in Virginia, and upon which he entered with such blustering 
gasconade, but from which he emerged under a storm of 
ridicule. 

In regard to most of the so-called " Southern historians " of 
the w^ar, I have to remark that they have vindicated their in- 
dubitable claims to be considered great masters of the art of 
war by the ability with which they have pointed out the 
blunders committed by the generals in the field ; and it is a 
subject of never-failing regret that they did not happen to 
discover their capacity for rectifying the errors of those who 
were directing the actual fighting until it was too late. As it 
is, my own deliberate conviction is that their services in the 
ranks as soldiers while the war was going on would have 
been worth infinitely more thaii all their ex post facto criti- 
cisms — that is, if they could have been brought up to the 
fighting point. General Lee, with that quiet humor for which 
he was noted among those who knew him well, once remarked 
to one of his officers, a friend of mine : " General, some people 
come to me after a battle is over and tell me where mistakes 
were made. This is rather provoking to me, for it is then 
too late to correct the blunders. If they would tell me before- 
hand what to do, then perhaps I might do better; but after a 
battle is over, even as dull a man as I am can see how things 
might have been managed better if I had only known as 
much beforehand as I have learned afterwards." 

There is the key to the whole matter. Unfortunately, bat- 
tles will not wait until you can find out all about the numbers 
and position of the opposing forces. The information in many 
cases is necessarily imperfect, and often based on conjecture, 
as it has to be sought under great difficulties, when wide- 
mouthed cannons are pointing at you, and the bullets of sharp- 
shooters are whistling about your ears. It is therefore not 
unnatural, under such circumstances, that the keenest vision 
3 



34 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

is unable to penetrate dense forests and thick breastworks, so 
as to discover what they conceal, and the shrewdest judgment 
is sometimes at fault. Then, too, the commanding general is 
not onlj^ not omniscient, but he cannot be omnipresent, and 
must often employ the eyes and ears of others, who sometimes 
mislead him, because they too get their information under 
like difficulties. 

These observations apply equally to the events immediately 
following a battle ; for when an army has achieved a victory 
over its opponent, it is generally not without considerable ex- 
haustion of its own energy and cohesiveness, and such a dis- 
ruption of its organisation, as for the time to render it unavail- 
able for vigorous action — this is especially the case when the 
victorious army happens to be much the weakest in numbers. 
Then, too, in such a case there is generally so much excite- 
ment and confusion that it requires time to ascertain the exact 
condition of the defeated army, as the commanders of such do 
not usually send in messengers to volunteer the information of 
the straits to which they are reduced. Now, when one of your 
astute military critics — fireside generals perhaps I ought to 
call them — has learned all the facts on both sides, or, as has not 
unfrequently been the case, has manufactured or distorted them 
to suit his purposes, comes to review the situation while cosily 
sipping his whiskey and water, and smoking his cigar or his 
pipe in his own chamber, far away from the disturbing ele- 
ments of a real battle, it is very easy for him to fight it over 
again on paper, to his own satisfaction at least, and point out 
exactly where the mistakes had been made, and show how 
telling blows might have been delivered upon the weak points 
of the enemy; and then, too, he can pick up (on paper always) 
the disordered elements of the victorious army, and without 
waiting for them to reorganise, to replenish their ammunition, 
to quench their thirst, or recruit their physical strength, 
greatly diminished perhiips by a protracted fast, and hurl them 
in compact masses on the shattered forces of their opponents 
without regard to any physical obstacles in the way — and 
thus, by what he would call a grand Napoleonic combination, 
end the contest. 

All this is very beautiful and very easy on paper ; but I as- 
sure you that, according to my best judgment, there is a great 
difference between fighting a battle in the field, between two 



ADDRESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 35 

contendiug forces with arms in their hands, and fighting one 
on paper — and I have tried both. 

I think I may fairly claim credit for entire originality in 
this discovery, inasmuch as the idea never seems to have oc- 
curred to the critics who appear to know so much about the 
art of war — on paper. 

1 do not wish to be understood as indicating the opinion that 
intelligent, fair-minded civilians cannot form correct opinions 
about military operations, and even become very good histo- 
rians and critics of military events, when they have access to 
authentic sources of information, and take the trouble to avail 
themselves of them, with an honest desire to ai'rive at the 
truth ; especially if they will take the pains to study the prin- 
ciples of war, and will recognise the fact that the commanding 
general in the field, from the very nature of the case, must 
understand the surrounding circumstances, and know the ac- 
tual condition and capacity of his own troops, better than any 
one else, including his own subordinates, can possibly do. My 
remarks apply exclusively to those mere professional writers 
who, with but a slight smattering of the rudiments of the 
science of war, have usurped the tripod of history, and ush- 
ered forth to the world, as the "only authorised and authentic" 
Southern Histories of the War, and Biographies or Lives of 
General Lee, and others, their hastily prepared and crudely 
digested compilations from the daily newspapers and the let- 
ters of "war correspondents," without taking the trouble of 
even consulting the official reports; and have accompanied 
them with their arrogant judgments and criticisms upon oper- 
ations they were incapable of understanding. 

Undoubtedly, as a general rule, men who are trained to 
arms, as they are best able to conduct the grand operations of 
armies, are best able to judge and describe them. Pre-eminent 
among the annals of war stand the History of the Peloponne- 
sian War by Thucydides, and Csesar's Commentaries. Thucy- 
dides pai'ticipated actively in the first eight years of the war 
whose history he relates, and in the eighth year was one of 
the commanders of a fleet and an army fitted out by the Athen- 
ians for Thrace. His history is the first authentic profane 
history of any war which is extant. He devoted the whole 
period of the war — near thirty years — to the collection of 
materials for his history, and though he lived twelve years 



36 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

after its termination, lie had completed the history of only 
twenty years of that war. In his introductory book, after 
cautioning the reader against " the songs of poets, whose pro- 
fession it is to give all possible enlargements to their subjects," 
and " the writers of prose, who study more that artful com- 
position which captivates the ear than the plain and simple 
recital of the truth," he says : 

And as for the actions performed in the course of this war, I have 
not prseumed to describe them from casual narratives or my ov?n conjec- 
tures, but either from certainty, when I myself was a spectator, or from 
the most exact information I have been able to collect from others. 

He further sa3'8 of his work : 

My relation, because quite clear of fable, may prove less delightful to 
the ears. But it will afford sufficient scope to those who love a sincere 
account of past transactions — of such as in the ordinary vicissitude of 
human affairs may fully occur, at least be resembled again. I give it to 
the public as an everlasting possession, and not as a contentious instru- 
ment of temporary applause. 

These observations contain some very admirable sugges- 
tions, which all historians should bear in mind. I will here 
BSiy that because Thucydides was not able to arrive to the 
succor of Amphipolis, an Athenian city on the river Strymon 
in Thrace, in time to save it from Brasidas — who prevailed 
upon the citizens to open their gates to him — though he 
occupied and fortified another city at the mouth of the same 
stream, so as to render the acquisition of his adversary of 
little avail, and successfully resisted several attempts to cap- 
ture the latter city, the Athenians were so incensed against 
him, by the clamor of the cowardly demagogue Cleon, that 
they stripped him of his command and condemned him to a 
banishment, from w^hich he was not recalled imtil the close of 
the war. Yet in his history he makes a simple recital of the 
facts, without egotism and without complaint against the 
treatment received from his countrymen — his onl}^ reference to 
that treatment being a brief statement, incidentally made in 
another part of his history, that "it was further my lot to 
sutter a twenty j^ears' exile from my country after my em- 
ployment in the business of Amphipolis." It is this abnega- 
tion of self which has served largely to gain so much admira- 
tion and credit for his narrative, and in it is to be found his 
strongest vindication. His example is worthy of all commen- 



ADDRESS OF GEN, JUBAL A. EARLY. 37 

dation ; and I will here say that the best defence any officer 
who jjarticipated in the war on our side can make of his con- 
duct and reputation, is a simple and truthful narrative of the 
events in which he participated. If he shall step aside to 
assail others, or attempt to enhance the value of his ow^n ser- 
vices by underrating those of his compeers, he will most sig- 
nallj^ fail in his purpose, and expose himself to a just censure 
and a damaging criticism. Certainly, in the terrible struggle 
through which it was our lot to pass, enough of glory was 
won for each one to be content with his own proper share ; 
and no man can build up a substantial reputation for himself 
upon the ruins of that of a comrade. The shortcomings of 
one cannot be palliated or excused by those of another; but 
when the facts are truthfully given, the impartial judgment of 
history will render justice to all. 

Eeturning now to the train of thought from which I have 
been diverted by this digression, I will say that Cajsar's Com- 
mentaries are said to be the contemporaneous record of the 
events narrated by him as they occurred under his immediate 
observation. 

In the Southern histories and biographies to which I have 
referred, the incidents of one of the most, if not the most 
gigantic struggle the world has witnessed, have been attempted 
to be given by literary hacks and writers of fiction, in narra- 
tives compiled by contract in a few weeks or months ; though 
into the four years of that struggle were crowded much more 
important events, and many more great battles, than marked 
the entire thirty years of the Peloponnesian War. A very 
great writer of fiction, Sir Walter Scott, whose name will live 
as long as English literature exists, half a century ago under- 
took to write, by contract, a military history, or biography. 
His poems and novels will be co-existent with the English 
language, but his "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte" has sunk 
into deserved neglect, and will ere long be consigned to utter 
oblivion. Is it necessary for me to indicate what will be the 
fate of the class of works to which I have referred? To 
expose all the absurd errors of fact or opinion contained in 
them would require more volumes than they are composed 
of; but the false claim made by some of them to the sanction 
of high names should be coi'rected. 

The history of our war has not been written ; and -it devolves 



38 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

upon the survivors of those who participated in that war, to 
furnish the authentic materials for that histoiy. When it is 
written faithfully and truthfully, and the enlightened world 
comes to compare it with the annals of past ages, it will be 
surprised to find how many of the noted incidents which have 
formed the themes of writers and orators in all ages, when 
compared to those which marked our struggle, sink into rel- 
ative insignificance ; and it will be demonstrated that in no 
war which the world has witnessed were the instances of 
unselfish jDatriotism and heroic devotion so marked and so 
numerous as in ours. In our war they were not confined to 
classes, or to age or sex, but were exhibited by the people as 
well as the soldiers, the women as well as the men. 

To illustrate my views, let me call your attention to sop^ie 
instances. There are many incidents in ancient history which 
are cited by poets, orators and historians to illustrate certain 
virtues or principles, and among them none figure oftener 
than two mentioned in Eoman history. The one is the sac- 
rifice alleged to have been made of himself by Curtius, who, it 
is said, when a chasm opened in the Eoman Forum that Avould 
not close, divining from an answer of the soothsayers that 
such a sacrifice was necessary, arrayed himself in complete 
armor, and mounting his horse, richly caparisoned, plunged 
into the yawning gulf, which closed over him. The other is 
that related of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who, when 
a Campanian lady visiting at her house made a boastful parade 
of her rich jewels, produced her two sons, and pointing to 
them, exclaimed, " These are the only jewels I possess." Yet 
the story of Curtius, in its principal features, is manifestly a 
fable, though perhaps founded on some instance of self-sac- 
rificing devotion to the welfare of the republic. And some 
mischievous old bachelor has hinted to me that it is not im- 
probable that the Campanian lady who was displaying her 
glittering baubles to excite the admiration and envy of the 
Eoman matron was an old maid, or, what was perhaps more 
unfortunate, a married lady without children, and that the 
mother of the Grracchi took a malicious pleasure in punishing 
the vanity and presumption of her friend by displaying her 
own superior good fortune. However that may be, it is cer- 
tain that the jewels of the Eoman matron were regarded as 
anything else than a valuable legacy by her countrymen ; for 



ADDRESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 39 

notwithstanding the great care bestowed by her on the educa- 
tion of her sons, they were regarded as very turbulent citizens 
and great disturbers of the peace of Eome by their contem- 
poraries, at whose hands both of them suffered violent deaths. 
Nevertheless, a statue of her was erected, with the inscrip- 
tion, Cornelia, Mater Gracchorum. 

1 will now relate the story of a Virginia youth, and of his 
mother, a Virginia matron — not as solitary instances of cour- 
age and devotion, but as examples of many of a similar char- 
acter which occurred in this State, and in others of the Con- 
federate States. 

There is a part of the Great Valley of Virginia called the 
valley of Moorefield, lying in the county of Hardy, on the 
south branch of the Potomac, which is west of the Shenan- 
doah Valley, and is separated from the latter by a chain, or 
rather two chains of mountains. Going west from Mount Jack- 
son in the Shenandoah Valley, across the Great North Moun- 
tain and the valley of Lost Eiver, and then ascending Branch 
Mountain, as it is called, you wind along the summit of the 
latter for miles, with now and then a fearful precipice so near 
to your path as to make you hold your breath as you pass 
along, and an almost endless succession of mountains piled on 
mountains awa}^ into the dim western horizon. If you hap- 
pen to be a stranger to the scene, you will begin to think you 
are getting beyond the reach of civilisation, when suddenly 
there bursts upon you one of the loveliest visions mortal eye 
ever beheld. It is the Moorefield valley, with the village of 
Moorefield in the midst of it, lying away down below you, and 
surrounded by mountains. It will conjure up visions of the 
Happy Valley of which you have read in your school-boy 
days in the story of Rasselas, and you will gaze upon the 
lovely scene with admiration inexpressible. Descending by a 
winding, rugged road into the valley, you will find in the town 
and surrounding country as fine a population as was to be 
found in this State anywhere in her best days. The valley is 
not very large, but it is exceedingly fertile, while the people 
are hospitable to profusion, and they were devoted to the 
cause of the Confederacy. When any of our troops went into 
that valley, the people did not wait for the call of the quarter- 
master, commissary, or foraging parties, but voluntarily fed 
the troops and their horses without charge, their chief regret 



40 SOUTHERN HISTOBICAL CONVENTION. 

being that the troops could not remain long enough to con- 
sume their surplus. The conscript law was never in force 
there, because the country was beyond our lines, and generally 
in the occupation or within the control of the Federal troops, 
who had free access to it from the line of the Baltimore and 
Ohio railroad ; nevertheless, many a brave soldier came volun- 
tarily from that valley to join our army. In the spring of 
1863, General Wm. E. Jones went on an expedition into North- 
western Virginia, to break the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, 
and passed through the Moorefield vallej^ with his brigade of 
cavalry and some other troops. The brigade camped one night 
near Moorefield, and Colonel Dulaney, of the Seventh Virginia 
Cavalry, then commanding the brigade, was invited to camp 
his own regiment near a gentleman's house, in order that the 
latter might feed the men and horses at his own expense, 
which he did most bountifully. Colonel Dulaney went to the 
house of that gentleman to thank him for his hospitality, and 
there met his wife. She then informed the Colonel that she 
already had two sons in his brigade, and that she had another 
one, Avho was her third and youngest son. She said that the 
boy was not old enough to be forced into the army, but that 
he was old enough and able to do a soldier's duty; that he 
wanted to go into the service ; that she wanted him to do so, 
and did not feel satisfied that he should remain at home when 
her country needed soldiers ; and she further said that she 
wanted him to go into the Colonel's regiment, if he would 
take him under his care, as he was quite young. The Colonel 
informed her, very properly, that he could make no difference 
between his soldiers, but told her that he had a captain who 
took good care of all of his men, and, if she was willing, he 
would put the young man in that company. With this she 
was satisfied, and when the young man was fitted out he was 
sent to the regiment, a free-will offering on the part of his 
mother to the cause of her country. It is needless to say 
he proved a faithful and gallant soldier. After our army had 
reached the lines about Petersburg in 1864, an expedition was 
made by General Hampton around the enemy's left flank to 
his rear, to capture a large number of beef cattle that had just 
landed on the James below. The enemy's lines were struck 
on this expedition, and the Seventh Virginia Cavalry, which 
was along, was dismounted to clear the way; In the charge 



ADDRKSS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 41 

made by the regiment, ('olonel Dulaney observed that a num- 
ber of hisinen on the right were down, and sent his adjutant, to 
see what was the matter, Avhen the latter found that the men 
had been shot down in the charge by a galling fire from the 
<>neTny. and among them the young soldier from the Moorefield 
valley, with both legs badly fraeture<l. The adjutant ottered 
ito have him carried off the field, but he said, "No, go on after 
the eneni}-; it is no use to move me, for I think I must die; but 
let them know at home — tell my mother that I died like a 
man, doing my duty as a soldier.'" He w^as afterwards carried 
•off, however, and an effort was made to save his life by ampti- 
tating one leg; but it was in vain, and he died, his greatest 
■earthly concern being that his mother should know that he 
had not proved unworthy of her devotion, and had died doing 
his duty as a Virginian and a Confederate soldier. Colonel 
Dulaney wrote a lettei" to (he mother, giving an account c>f 
her son's death and the cii-cumstances attending it, and ex- 
pressing his own regret and sympathy. To that letter she re- 
plied as follows : " If you can feel. Colonel, as you seem to do, 
at the death of a boy but a few months ago a stranger to you. 
what do you suppose are the feelings of his mother at the loss 
of her youngest and dearest son ? But, Colonel, I would rathei- 
a thousand times he had fallen as he has done, in defence of 
his countr}', than to have saved his life by neglecting his duty.'" 
Curtius and Cornelia belonged to the Patrician order in 
Rome, the latter being a daughter of Scipio Africanus the 
Ixreat. The stor}"^ I have told you is that of a private Confed- 
erate soldier and his mother, who never dreamed that their 
names could ever be sounded by the voice of fame. It was not 
marked by the dramatic surroundings Avith which the stories 
of Curtius and of Cornelia are clothed, but it is true in every 
sentence and won] ; and I ask you if an3'thing could be moi-e 
touching than the sublime devotion of both mothei' and son ? 
It would be hard to say which exhibited the greatest heroism, 
and not for worlds would I wound the heart of the mother by in- 
timating that the heroic courage of her darling boy was surpassed 
by her own heroic consecration of him to the duty which cost 
him his life. They were both worthy of each other, and I 
challenge all history to produce any instance of devotion to 
country and to duty which surpasses theirs. Yet this was 
not an exceptional case, and it was the brave and cheering. 
4 



42 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL CONVENTION. 

wordn of the women at home, mothers, wives, sisters, and 
sweethearts, which revived and sustained the sj>irits of many 
a Confederate soldier, and nerved his arm for ahnost super- 
human effort, 

1 could multiply instances of .self-sacrifice and heroic dev(j- 
tion. and I could tell you how officers and soldiers of our army 
submitted cheerfully to privations of eveiy kind, and though 
badly paid, badly clothed, and badly fed, were ever ready to 
discharge their duty to their country at the cost of their lives: 
how officers led their men into the very jaws of yawning 
death, and how soldiers followed where any dared to lead ; 
but this would be an almost endless task. There was, how- 
ever, another side to the picture, and we cannot and must no-t 
shut our eyes to the fact that there were those who were 
wanting to duty in the hour of trial. There were some who 
gave their sympathies to the enemy ; some who joined hi.s 
ranks and aided in desolating their own country; some who 
were lukewarm ; some who were constantly cavilling at the 
measures of those in authority, instead of upholding their 
hands when fron\ weariness they drooped ; some who with- 
held their stores from a suffering army ; some who speculated 
on the misfortunes of their country, and thought only of mak- 
ing mont\y out of the necessities of others ; some who had to 
be forced into the army ; some who evaded service altogether; 
some who lurked behind in time of battle ; and some who 
deserted. These cannot be permitted to share in the glory 
won, but they must serve as foils to the true and devoted, so 
as to make their virtues and heroism shine the brighter. 
Worse thati all, there are some who had fair war records who 
have tarnished and falsified those records by uniting with the 
worst of our enemies in the basest schemes for plundering and 
humiliating their owmi people. It is indeed a sad, a mortify- 
ing reflection, for we have been grievously '■ wounded in the 
liouse of our friends," or those we thought such. But all 
great causes have had their aj)Ostates. Even the brightest 
archangel around the Thi'one fell from his high estate; the 
first-born of the human race imbrued his hands in the inno- 
cent blood of his pious brother; among the twelve chosen 
Apostles was one who betrayed his Lord and Saviour; and 
the first American Revolution produced a Benedict Arnold. 
We could not expect to escape the common lot, and we have- 



ADDRESS OF GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY. 43 

Juid our (Jains, Jndsi.sos. and Aniolds, if we have not had a 
Jiacifer; but 

" Like the base Judean " who " threw a pearl away, 
Richer than all his tribe," 

tliey have consigned themselves to an immortality of infamy, 
and must abide the fate shaped by their own hands. Let 
their examples stand forth as a warning to the weak and 
inconstant who are disposed to sm^eumb to the temptations 
of adversity ! 

I turn from so revolting a phase of our history with the re- 
mark, that we alvvavs have a "-lorious consolation in beina: able 
to point to tlie pure and unsullied lives and records of our 
great leaders, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Tackson, and Sidney 
Johnston, to say nothing of other fallen comrades, and of the 
living who have kept the faith. 

I have thus given some refiections of a general character, to 
indicate my sense of the duty which has devolved upon us in 
regard to the history of our cause and our struggle. We must 
vindicate that cause, rekindle and strengthen the faith and 
spirit of the living, and do justice to the memory of our fallen 
comrades, so that their examples shall serve to stimulate those 
who will come after us, to emulate their deeds and virtues. 

In that noble funeral oration pronounced by Pericles over 
those of his countrymen who had fallen in the first year of 
the Peloponnesian War, he uttered some sentiments which it 
is not inappropriate to recall, for the pui-pose of application to 
the work we have in hand. In regard to those who had fallen 
in that war, he said : ■• What their eyes showed plainly must 
be done they trusted their own valor to accomplish, thinking 
it more glorious to defend themselves and die in the attempt 
than to yield and live!" 

In speaking of those heroes who had, in former days, yielded 
their lives in defence of their country, he said: -'Bestowing 
thus their lives on the public, they have every one received a 
l)raise that will never decay, a sepulchre that will always be 
most illustrious; not that in which their bones lie mouldering, 
but that in which their fame is preserved, to be on every occa- 
sion, when honor is the employ of either word or act, eter- 
nally remembered. This whole earth is the sepulchre of illus- 
trious men; nor is it the inscriptions on the columns in their 



44 SOUTHERK HISTOEIUAJ. CONVENTION. 

native soil alone that show i heir merit, but the memorial of 
them, bettei" than all inseriptions. in every foreign nation, ve- 
positcd more duraldy in universal remembhuice than on their 
own tomb." 

He nttert'd another sentiment, whieh desei-ves to be in>- 
printed on our memories in inetfaecable eharaeters and .in- 
stilled as an everlasting- preeept into the minds of the i-ising 
and futiire generations: and that is: 

''It is greatness of soul alone that never grows old; nor is 
it wealth that delights in the latter stage of life. j\8 some give 
out, so mueh as honor." 



THE PROCEEDINGS 



Southern Historical Conyentioii, 

Which Assembled at the Montgomery White Sulphur 
Springs, Va., on the I-Itii op August, 1873; 



AND OF THK 



SOUTHERN HISTOEICAL SOCIETY, 



AS REORGANISED, 



WITH THK 



Address by GeiL Jubal A. Early, 

Delivered before the Convention on tlie First day of its Session. 



BALTIMORE: 

TUENBULL BEOTHEES, 

Publishers to The Southern Historical Society, 
8 N. Charles Street. 



